Cultural Understanding Videos from the SIS Long Night of Solace
by Guardian54
Summary: In a very similar universe with a very different Humanity, the Shepard Crew is STILL endeavoring to spread cultural understanding between the races after the end of the Reaper War. These are some of their more… uh, notorious… endeavors. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
1. Them Turian Assholes…

A/N: You can probably tell where I got this idea from, or rather, where I was when I got this idea.

This series will be mildly set in the SI Archives verse that I discontinued due to wanting to rewrite and publish as original fiction for money. Obviously, once I get the first few original series/wars out, I'd have to do some negotiating regarding references despite huge enough changes that it would count as original. Let's just say that it will be as far from the originals as _Spaceballs_ from _Star Wars_ … I doubt I will even have any aliens beyond the "Old Machines" trope when I go original, and of course "The Four Horsemen War" is so far off of ME canon that, well…

So you can see this as MILD (very mild) crossover with a series that hasn't even had the chance to happen yet.

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Shot 1: Them Turian Assholes…

"Testing, testing… are we live?" Garrus Vakarian asked, waiting until Shepard, who was behind the camera set, gave him a thumb-up.

"There has been a common misconception among the younger generations born after the Reaper War. This arises from older Turians reminiscing about the good old days when my race would file our talons to be sharper instead of blunting them. The more nostalgic among them may remind those of you who are students of human history of the Americans prior to them launching the last Human World War, sounding like they have infinite arrogance. I would like to remind them that the 'good old days' of legend have been gone for many thousands of years, and that almost since methods to reliably file our talons down without breaking them were invented have Turians filed down our talons, for gentle handling of delicate materials, and for one other, very mundane reason."

Garrus reached under the desk he was giving the short lecture from, and pulled out a roll of "antique" toilet paper made on Palaven before the Reaper War. It looked very similar to the product used by Human, Asari, and every other race which used toilet paper (every remaining race in the galaxy, the Vorcha having been wiped out in the Reaper War, though the Volus were a bit debatable in this respect).

"We got tired of poking ourselves in the ass, and/or breaking the toilet paper and getting crap all over our hands. The solar radiation on Palaven is strong enough to make us evolve metallic scaling in our skin, but since common Turian posture throughout our evolution does not include bending over and spreading our rear ends to catch some sun… Shepard what are you doing muting the microphone like that?"

"You mean trying to mute it, I think someone's sabotaging the system, because the mute button isn't working… Liara this isn't funny, we could get sued for being inappropriate for our show's rating!" Shepard grumbled at his Asari wife/bond-mate/whatever one's term of choice in one's native culture was. She smirked in response, and he rolled his eyes at this, but let it go.

"Well, while those two are having a little spat off-camera, my point is that, as Turian viewers know but will NOT attest to—we're more likely to punch you if you ask one of my race randomly on the street—we had little need for radiation shielding between our buttocks. Therefore, to reduce the amount of bacteria clinging to and growing on our skin, evolution pressured us to not have metallic scales around there. THAT is the main reason Turians have left scratch marks on stones since long before the rise of the first Turian civilizations. Some of the marks are consistent with sharpening, likely for the attacking hand, while the others are blunting, because ever since we learnt to wipe our asses with LEAVES we learnt to not poke ourselves… Of course, it helped with handling other delicate materials too, such as gutting prey animals without cutting any undesirable bits open, or handling berries and other delicate plant materials. Hopefully, this video has helped clear up many of the cultural misunderstandings about Turians and our talons being traditionally blunted instead of sharpened as some grumble about. The good old days did not exist, and were much worse than today. That is all." The recording light on the camera switched off. "I don't want to hear it, Shepard."

Shepard on the other hand was grinning broadly. "Damned Turian assholes…"

"Sometimes you make me wish I had sharpened the talons on one hand instead of blunting both… why the hell is the microphone still on?"

Liara suddenly remembered she had the microphone control thanks to her hacking it earlier "…Oops"

That particular episode of "Cultural Understanding Videos from the _SIS Long Night of Solace_ " finally ended there.

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A/N: However, I should note that I was only in the bathroom, not on the toilet, when I thought of this. And yes, the only noticeable crossover (as the Turians would still refer to it as the Reaper War instead of The Four Horsemen War) is the name of the ship. And no, it is nowhere near Covenant Super Carrier size/power.

REVIEWS WOULD BE APPRECIATED.


	2. Plants Can Be Mammals Too

A/N: See Adept models from StarCraft 2: Legacy of the Void for the reasons behind this.

 **In my old SupCom/ME/StarCraft/Halo crossover series, I put Motherships as ships that the Protoss evacuated onto every time the Reapers came by to hide in deep space with. Guess what happened come LotV (years after I put the idea out)? Ark Ships… either great minds think alike or someone over at Blizzard reads too much fanfiction… and I should stop posting my bright ideas and start publishing original works instead.**

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Chapter 2: Plants Can Be Mammals Too

Today, the _SIS Long Night of Solace_ was welcoming a special guest from a relatively insular sector, who was here to try to defuse some confusion among the other races of the galaxy regarding her species.

"This Psi-reception device is translating correctly? Yes, it seems so." Executor Selendis tested the machinery before deeming it satisfactory. "Recently, due to images released of our Adepts and other female Protoss, there has been much debate on your networks regarding why Adept armor has room for, uh, breasts, as races that feed offspring with milk call them. While Protoss can lose any one of their three hearts and survive, which is why we have three hearts instead of two, two of the three are in our ribcages. What this means is that if our ribcage gets utterly crushed, we are dead anyhow. So why not concentrate other important organs around and near the ribcage, in pairs to have a back-up? Now, while we are photosynthetic organisms, there is still the matter of younglings having a hard time sometimes locating all necessary micronutrients for themselves, such as some minerals. For this purpose, to protect out biological investments, Protoss females had long ago evolved glandular tissue intended to secrete micronutrient-rich solutions which our younglings can absorb through their skins. Such investment protection qualifies as an important organ, and hence could be, and was, concentrated around the ribcage. Anywhere but directly to the front would be either awkward to align with the most absorbent areas of our younglings' skin, or would hinder our movements. _So it should be pretty obvious why Adepts show distinctive space for what you would almost certainly reckon, correctly at that, to be breasts_."

"But in the first known images of female Protoss released to the galaxy, we did not see any sign of such distinctive bulges on you, Executor, or Matriarch Vorazun for that matter?" One of the reporters who had come onboard for this press release questioned.

Selendis covered her eyes with a hand and let out a rare _physical_ sigh in the form of ejecting a particularly large burst of air from her body's air supply (photosynthesis required specialized gas exchange for densely built or well-insulated organisms) systems "Have you ever seen what Breast Envy can cause an Asari to do? Imagine that, but much, much worse for the idiot dumb enough to provoke us Protoss to action, though admittedly there would be no biting involved. If you haven't gotten the hint yet, which I think quite likely given your occupation, please shut up on the topic of me being quite flat enough to fight with full agility as a Zealot instead of using an Adept's combat gear. Oh, and don't annoy Vorazun about it either, depending on how much you manage to irritate her, you'd literally never see her coming… And before any of you actually manage to annoy me, it is true that the initial admission of female Protoss to the Templar ranks did in fact depend on level of skill but more importantly level of flatness. It was felt it would be a better transition than to just let everyone in who had the skills. Of course, bringing females in as maintenance crews were a whole other matter…"

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A/N: I laughed my ass off on seeing the Adept model for the first time.


	3. Why the Conduit Led To the Presidium

A/N: This is a very simple, very short one.

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Chapter 3: Why the Conduit Led To the Presidium

 _SIS Long Night of Solace, Sometime After the Four Horsemen War (Reaper War)_

"One might wonder why the Prothean team who built the Conduit decided to target it to a receiving relay they installed on the Presidium." John Shepard said to the camera. "The reasoning was very simple, according to our resident Prothean Javik. Please introduce your people's reasoning…"

Javik was still irritated at seeing the Protoss recently, since the Protoss and Prothean empires had been the two superpowers of the Protheans' time, and while the Protoss had managed to hide away on their Ark-Ships and Motherships, his people had not had quite the foresight or insanity to build such colossal vessels as an escape plan of all things. "Have you _ever_ ridden the Citadel elevators?"

"Are they inactive for some time after each Cycle completes?" John asked, since that would be a valid reason.

Javik gained what looked suspiciously like a distant, blank stare "I have ridden those elevators in my life, many times, and each time I ride them I wonder if I would die of old age before they finished moving. Instead of risking their people in the elevator shafts, the scientists responsible for altering the Citadel did so by setting up camp on the Presidium and working from there, instead of having to commute to work each working cycle. This meant far fewer trips on those glorified aging devices after they found them to work, or fewer shaft-crawls, in this case to get food and water from the Wards' protein vats and water recycling plants instead of commuting to work."

"Were you actually there before you were transferred to and put into stasis on Eden Prime?"

"Anyone with half a brain could figure it out after _one_ elevator ride."

"So every Cycle that used the Citadel as a capital was a bunch of brainless morons?"

Javik watched the broken time-wasting abomination (and trap) float by in its heavily damaged state with a distinct satisfaction. "Looks like it."

John cleared his throat, then "This short broadcast was brought to you by our Extranet vote on the Unresolved Mysteries of the Reaper War. Please stay tuned for more episodes of our Cultural Understanding Videos!"

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A/N: After the nth ME fanfic lamenting the elevator rides, I suddenly considered why the Prothean scientists didn't set up shop near food and water instead of their work.


End file.
